The first and heartbreaking history of ‘no medals with AG
The Korean women's volleyball team (ranked 40th in the world), led by coach Cesar Hernández González, defeated Taiwan with a set score of 3-0 in the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games women's volleyball 5th-6th place match held at the Hangzhou Normal University Changqian Campus gymnasium in China on the 7th. He finished the competition with a victory and a final 5th place.
ll has never advanced beyond the semifinals except for 5th place at the 2006 Doha Games. However, in this year's Asian Games, I was even anxious about 6th place, let alone 5th place.
Concerns were heightened by the poor record of 12 losses in the 2023 International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) Volleyball Nations League (VNL) in July, 6th place in the Asian Championships in August, and 7 consecutive losses in the 2024 Paris Olympic qualifiers.
Fortunately, we avoided the 'worst situation ever' of finishing in 6th place, but when everyone was in a festive mood, volleyball was particularly cold.
Women's volleyball was left out of the spotlight, recording 'no medals' for the first time in 17 years and men's volleyball for the first time in 61 years. It is also the first time in Korean history that both men and women have won a medal at the Asian Games.
Korean women's volleyball started the Asian Games in tears. It was the same crushing defeat as at the Asian Championships held last month.
Korea opened the first match of this tournament against Vietnam. Korea suffered an upset loss to Vietnam, who had been considered one step below them until the Asian Championships, clearly showing the current state of Korean volleyball.
Another opportunity for revenge came at the Asian Games, but just like before, Korea won the 1st and 2nd sets first and lost the 3rd, 4th, and 5th sets in succession, creating a solemn atmosphere. In the following match against Nepal, the first set was briefly overturned and a shoulder-to-shoulder encounter emerged.
They barely made it to the quarterfinals by finishing second in their group, but their first opponent was China (6th in the world), the strongest player in Asia. As expected, they suffered a crushing defeat, barely exceeding 20 points per set. The first set ended with 12 points.
South Korea, which was thwarted from advancing to the semifinals, played its second quarterfinal match against North Korea, which had lost to Vietnam, and barely won after losing the first set. Although it has been six years since the 2017 World Championship preliminaries that North Korean volleyball has played on the international stage, South Korea has been sweating.
In the subsequent match against Kazakhstan and Taiwan, they won relatively easily, but failed to advance to the semifinals, which was their original goal. After losing the semifinal spot, which they had consistently missed so far, to Vietnam, Korea barely ranked 5th.
It is encouraging that Kang So-hwi (GS Caltex) has improved his skills and established himself as the national team's ace. However, if we return to volleyball relying on aces, the reality is that we cannot avoid ranking 5th or 6th in Asia.
The situation is even worse when it comes to men's volleyball. The Korean men's volleyball team (ranked 27th in the world), led by coach Lim Do-heon, was eliminated from the pre-game even before the opening ceremony, suffering the humiliation of not winning a medal at the Asian Games for the first time in 61 years.
The men's volleyball team has been training at the Jincheon Athletes' Village since May 24 to prepare for the Hangzhou Asian Games. At the time, the men's volleyball team was preparing for the 2023 Asian Volleyball Confederation (AVC) Challenge Cup held in Taiwan.
The original plan was to improve the performance in the AVC Challenge Cup, advance to the FIVB Challenge Cup, and then return to the Volleyball Nations League (VNL) stage after 6 years.
Afterwards, she confidently set her goal of winning a gold medal at the Hangzhou Asian Games in September.
However, the men's volleyball team failed to return to the VNL, falling to Bahrain, which was ranked 77th in the world at the time, in the semifinals of the Challenge Cup and ended up with a bronze medal. At the subsequent Asian Championships, they failed to advance to the semifinals and were pushed back to the 5th and 6th place match.
Accordingly, Coach Lim Do-heon brought back 38-year-old veteran setter Han Seon-seon (Korean Air) just before heading to the Asian Games. But the results could not be reversed.
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